In sentimental operas and fictions the dominant threat is the unsuitable secret marriage, the disputed inheritance, or the seduction plot, while in gothic works dynastic, public, political issues figure more prominently.

In fact, Brontë's novel uses two of the most prevalent scenic types in gothic drama: the medieval castle and the conventual church, the two most lasting models of "pure Gothic" architecture according to Richard Payne Knight

When I suggested this as a topic for a special session, I expected to receive mostly papers on representations of the library in gothic and other novels, papers that addressed the heightened persistence with which Romantic forms of fiction exploited the long-standing link in European literary representation between literacy and romance.